Create a customized boot disk

When you create a virtual machine (VM) instance, you must also create a boot disk for that VM. You can use either a public image or a custom image. GDC automatically creates a boot persistent disk when you create a VM instance. If you require additional data storage disks for your instances, add a persistent disk to your VM.

Use the procedures described on this page to create boot disks that you can use later to create VMs.

Before you begin

To use gdcloud command-line interface (CLI) commands, ensure that you have downloaded, installed, and configured the gdcloud CLI. All commands for GDC air-gapped appliance use the gdcloud or kubectl CLI, and require an operating system (OS) environment.

Get the kubeconfig file path

To run commands against the admin cluster, ensure you have the following resources:

Locate the admin cluster name, or ask your Platform Administrator (PA) what the cluster name is.
Sign in and generate the kubeconfig file for the admin cluster if you don't have one.
Use the path to replace ADMIN_KUBECONFIG in these instructions.

Permissions required

To perform this task, you must have access to VM disks. Follow the steps to either verify or assign the Project Virtual Machine Admin role.

Create a boot disk from an image

You can create a standalone, boot, persistent disk outside of instance creation and attach it to an instance afterwards. This section shows how to create a boot disk from either a GDC-provided OS image or a custom OS image.

Create a boot disk from a GDC-provided image

Before you create a boot disk by using a GDC-provided image, review the list of available images. Then create a boot disk with the provided image.

gdcloud

List all available images and their minimum disk size:
```
gdcloud compute images list
```
This command includes both GDC air-gapped appliance-provided and custom images. Choose either one in the vm-system namespace.

Select a GDC air-gapped appliance-provided image to create the VM disk:

gdcloud compute disks create BOOT_DISK_NAME \
    --project=PROJECT \
    --size=DISK_SIZE \
    --image=IMAGE_NAME \
    --image-project=vm-system

Replace the variables using the following definitions:

Variable	Definition
`BOOT_DISK_NAME`	The name of the boot disk.
`PROJECT`	The GDC project in which to create the boot disk.
`DISK_SIZE`	The size of the boot disk, needs to be at least the `minimumDiskSize` of the image.
`IMAGE_NAME`	The name of the image.

kubectl

List all available GDC-provided images:

kubectl --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG \
    get virtualmachineimages.virtualmachine.gdc.goog --namespace vm-system

Get the minimumDiskSize of a specific GDC-provided image. The size of the created customized boot disk must be at least the minimumDiskSize:

kubectl --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG \
  get virtualmachineimages.virtualmachine.gdc.goog --namespace vm-system \
  IMAGE_NAME -ojsonpath='{.spec.minimumDiskSize}'

Create a VirtualMachineDisk object:

kubectl --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG apply -n PROJECT -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: virtualmachine.gdc.goog/v1
kind: VirtualMachineDisk
metadata:
  name: BOOT_DISK_NAME
spec:
  source:
    image:
      name: IMAGE_NAME
      namespace: vm-system
  size: DISK_SIZE
EOF

Replace the variables using the following definitions:

Variable	Definition
`ADMIN_KUBECONFIG`	The admin cluster `kubeconfig` file path.
`IMAGE_NAME`	The name of the image.
`PROJECT`	The GDC project in which to create the boot disk.
`BOOT_DISK_NAME`	The name of the boot disk.
`DISK_SIZE`	The size of the boot disk, needs to be at least the `minimumDiskSize` of the image.

Create a boot disk from a custom image

A custom image belongs exclusively to your project. To create a VM with a custom boot disk image, if the image doesn't already exist in your project then you must create one.

Set up the necessary IAM roles to access custom images in your project if you haven't done so yet. Then proceed with these instructions.

gdcloud

List all custom images and their minimum disk size:

gdcloud compute images list \
    --project=PROJECT \

Select a custom image to create the VM disk:

gdcloud compute disks create BOOT_DISK_NAME \
    --project=PROJECT \
    --size=DISK_SIZE \
    --image=IMAGE_NAME \
    --image-project=PROJECT

Replace the variables using the following definitions:

Variable	Definition
`BOOT_DISK_NAME`	The name of the boot disk.
`PROJECT`	The GDC project in which to create the boot disk.
`DISK_SIZE`	The size of the boot disk, needs to be at least the `minimumDiskSize` of the image.
`IMAGE_NAME`	The name of the image.

kubectl

List all custom images:

kubectl --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG \
    get virtualmachineimages.virtualmachine.gdc.goog --namespace PROJECT

Get the minimumDiskSize of a specific customized image. The size of the created customized boot disk must be at least the minimumDiskSize:

kubectl --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG \
  get virtualmachineimages.virtualmachine.gdc.goog --namespace vm-system \
  IMAGE_NAME -ojsonpath='{.spec.minimumDiskSize}'

Create a VirtualMachineDisk object:

kubectl --kubeconfig ADMIN_KUBECONFIG \
    apply --namespace PROJECT -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: virtualmachine.gdc.goog/v1
kind: VirtualMachineDisk
metadata:
  name: BOOT_DISK_NAME
spec:
  source:
    image:
      name: IMAGE_NAME
      namespace: PROJECT
  size: DISK_SIZE
EOF

Replace the variables, using the following definitions:

Variable	Definition
`ADMIN_KUBECONFIG`	The admin cluster `kubeconfig` file path.
`IMAGE_NAME`	The name of the image chosen from the list all custom images command.
`PROJECT`	The GDC project in which to create the boot disk.
`BOOT_DISK_NAME`	The name of the boot disk.
`DISK_SIZE`	The size of the boot disk, needs to be at least the `minimumDiskSize` of the image.

To replace a boot disk, see the Replace a boot disk page.